


Gift

by Georgina



Series: Gift [1]
Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 02:04:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5112281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Georgina/pseuds/Georgina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“But why would law enforcement want fuzzy pink handcuffs?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gift

“Jupiter!” Katharine says, hugging her. “I’m so glad you came.”

Jupiter resists the urge to tug on the hem of her dress, which she bought at Target at 60% off. No matter how many fancy space dresses she owns now, no matter how many wonders of the universe she’s seen, she’ll never be used to this kind of thing: the tearooms at one of Chicago’s toniest hotels, with tux-clad waiters and _petits fours_ and women casually lounging around in outfits that cost more than Jupiter makes in a month.

Katharine is wearing a ribbon sash that says Bride To Be, but even that looks classy, somehow. Must be the font. A tiara is perched atop her golden hair, too, just in case anybody’s unclear about what’s going on.

“Congratulations!” Jupiter says. She puts a ribbon-wrapped box on the nearby table, and accepts a glass from a waiter as her reward. “Have you decided on a honeymoon yet?”

“We just kept going back and forth — Paris or Prague, Paris or Prague. So we’re doing both! With a river cruise in between and, Austin assures me, a few surprises along the way.”

“Diamond earrings atop the Eiffel Tower,” one of Katharine’s friends says on her way past. “Just you wait!”

Katharine waves her hand, _Oh you_ , but she’s practically glowing as she sips her champagne.

“That sounds lovely,” Jupiter says.

“You’re still coming to the wedding, I hope? And bringing your new man?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Jupiter says. She still hasn’t quite worked out what they’re going to do about Caine’s ears — his usual roster of beanies and ball caps isn’t going to cut it — but she’s been thinking of looking for a trilby or a fedora or something. She has a feeling Caine’s going to end up looking like a hipster, but that’s probably better than a werewolf. Or an elf.

“You’ve seemed so much happier lately. It’s because of him, right?”

“Kind of,” Jupiter says. “I mean, he’s a part of it, definitely.”

“Good,” Katharine says firmly, and Jupiter squeezes her hand. “You deserve someone who’ll treat you right, sweetie. We all do.”

Jupiter smiles. “He treats me like a queen.”

 

 

When Jupiter comes home the next morning, Caine opens the door in nothing more than a pair of dark grey boxer-briefs. There’s a space tablet and a plate of half-eaten peanut-butter toast on the dining table, and a couple of crumbs are still stuck in his beard.

“Your Majesty,” Caine says happily, wrapping his arms around Jupiter when she leans into him. His wings follow a moment later. “I wasn’t expecting you until lunchtime.”

“I woke up early,” Jupiter says, and can’t help the smile that spreads across her face like sunshine. She’s never had somebody to come home to before, let alone somebody who’s so clearly pleased to see her.

After the high tea there were drinks and dinner and more drinks and a hotel suite with the most incredible view over Chicago, which Jupiter could appreciate now that she wasn’t ascending above it or falling through it or zooming across it as she clung to Caine’s back like a monkey.

“I missed you last night,” she says.

Caine ducks his head to the curve of her throat, breathing deeply. She can tell by how long he scents her that he missed her also, but he won’t say anything. No matter how many times Jupiter says she cares for him, he doesn’t think he has any claim on her time or attention.

“It sounded like you were having fun,” he says, instead.

“Yeah, it was a pretty good night,” Jupiter says, and then, “Wait, sounded? Did I call you?”

Caine smiles. “Your Majesty was a little intoxicated at the time.”

Jupiter tries to think back, but everything’s kind of blurry after the fifth cocktail. Those girly-looking drinks with the umbrellas and chunks of fruit in them are lethal. “What did I say?”

Caine clears his throat, the tips of his ears turning pink.

“That good, huh?”

“Your Majesty had some highly complimentary things to say about some of my attributes.”

“I’m assuming I wasn’t referring to your marksmanship or piloting skills.”

“Not unless I shoot people with my tongue. Or my, uh, knot.”

“I talked about your knot?”

Jupiter tries not to wince. Or blush. She crosses her fingers in the small of Caine’s back, hoping she just referenced it in passing. Like, _Hello, space-wolf boyfriend. You have a knot. Miss you!_

“You mentioned how much you enjoy riding it.”

“Oh, my god,” Jupiter says, burying her face against his chest. “I am never drinking again.”

“I liked it,” Caine says, kissing the top of her head. “I enjoy hearing how much I please Your Majesty.”

“We spent half the night talking about sex. Apparently vibrators and naughty underwear are the go-to bachelorette presents now, even with the fancy girls. I felt stupid for having bought a silk robe.”

Caine looks at her curiously. “What’s a vibrator?”

Jupiter gives the broad outline, then whispers, “They all seemed weird to me, anyway. None of them looked like you.”

“Your Majesty is welcome to the real thing anytime she wants.”

“But can you make it buzz?”

“You’d have to go to Stinger for that,” Caine says, and Jupiter laughs.

“Does it really?”

“I have no idea.”

“God, can you imagine?” Jupiter says, and pauses. Turns out, it’s quite easy to imagine. Huh.

Caine nudges her with the tip of her nose. “Should I call him for you?”

“There’s only one Skyjacker I want in my bed,” Jupiter says. She gently brushes his face clean before kissing him. “And I bought him back a present.”

“Your Majesty shouldn’t have,” Caine says, but his smile is small and pleased. Jupiter doesn’t like to think about why such simple acts of kindness mean so much to him.

“Do you want to guess what it is? It’s something I know you’ll like.”

“Is it a vibrator?”

“No, it’s— wait, do you want a vibrator?”

Caine is looking curious again. “Is there something Your Majesty thinks we should do with a vibrator?”

Jupiter hesitates, because there’s certain conversations she and Caine haven’t had yet. All in good time, she figured. Perhaps now is the good time?

Or perhaps Jupiter will just wuss out and say, “Your present is cake. I bought you some cake from the party.”

An expression passes over Caine’s face too fast for Jupiter to read it, but all he says is, “I do love cake, thank you.” He looks her over like he’s trying to work out where she could’ve secreted it on her person.

“It’s in my overnight bag,” Jupiter says. “Let me go get it.”

When Jupiter comes back from the bedroom, a square silver box in her hand, Caine puts a mug on the coffee table. She smiles at him in gratitude. Her head’s not too bad, thanks to the space pills she took this morning — she’s never been able to get a clear description of what they’re made from, but she’s been assured it isn’t people — but she’s still kind of tired.

Jupiter takes a sip of her coffee. Just the right amount of milk, one sugar, perfectly hot. She sinks back into the lounge chair, putting her feet up with a contented sigh.

“This is not cake,” Caine says sadly. He pulls what appears to be a pile of pink fur out of the box, sniffs at it, sneezes, and drops it on the table. It clinks.

Jupiter looks up.

Caine pokes at the pile with his finger. It slides apart into two pink circles, a silver chain resting between them.

“Oh, god,” Jupiter says, grabbing for it.

Caine cocks his head at her. “What is that?”

“Nothing.”

“Because it looks like…“

“Nothing!”

“…handcuffs,” Caine says. “But why would law enforcement want fuzzy pink handcuffs?” He answers his own question with a muttered, “Tersies.”

“They’re not real handcuffs,” Jupiter says, putting them behind her back. “They’re like toys.”

Caine frowns. “Those are for children?”

“Toys for adults,” Jupiter clarifies. Caine still looks confused, so she sighs and explains: “You know, like, for sex? Some people like to, um. Like when you tie your partner up so they can’t move as you’re teasing them? Or to make it more intense? Do you know what I’m talking about?”

“Yes, I understood when you mentioned sex,” Caine says, smiling. “I was just enjoying listening to Your Majesty’s explanations.”

“How does bondage work in space? There’s those anti-gravity cuffs the Keepers used on me, right? I’m sure they could be repurposed into something that’s not, you know, horrifying.”

“They’re not bad,” Caine says. “Although there’s better ways to have sex without gravity.”

“Like what?”

“Some Entitleds have zero-g chambers. They make everything very floaty, though it’s also kind of hard to get, uh. Leverage?” Caine says. Jupiter blinks at him. “I mean, that’s what I’ve heard.”

Jupiter and Caine have never really talked about their pasts, but she knows he must have one. “You’ve had sex with an Entitled before?” she says.

Please don’t let it be Kalique. Please don’t let it be Kalique.

Or Seraphi.

“I was once assigned as Royal Guard to an Entitled visiting Orous for two weeks. He was a minor part of a minor house, but he was paranoid about assassination, and— well, I don’t really understand the politics, but he demanded a Legionnaire guard, and since our squad had just come back from a mission, we were available. His seneschal was a tiger splice. One night she and I got highly intoxicated on wineberries and snuck into the zero-g chamber on his ship.”

“And?”

“And…” Caine says, and waves a hand. “Floaty.”

Jupiter tries to imagine what sex between a wolf splice and a tiger splice is like. Probably very bitey. “Doesn’t Titus have one of those chambers? I think he mentioned it during a conversation about his pleasure splices that I’ve been doing my best to forget.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Perhaps you and I could borrow it sometime.”

Caine makes a reluctant sound.

“Or not,” Jupiter says, trying not to take it personally. Sure, she’s not a _tiger_ , she doesn’t have a velvet-rough tongue and soft ears and probably a sexy tail, but—

“I would be happy to have sex with Your Majesty anywhere you wished to have sex with me, but I imagine Titus has cameras set up everywhere,” Caine says, and Jupiter makes a face. “Yes. But there are…” he says, and coughs. “Other places you can go if you want to try something like that.”

“What, like space sex palaces?”

Caine nods.

“Really?”

“Apparently. I haven’t been to one — they cater exclusively to Entitleds.”

“You know, I really should see more of the universe.”

“Yes,” Caine says, ducking his head as he smiles. “Your Majesty should.”

Jupiter finishes off the rest of her coffee. Caine seems to have forgotten about the handcuffs, so all Jupiter has to do is get them away from here somehow, perhaps with a distracting kiss or two, or maybe even the old What’s That Over There? standby. Of course, if she does What’s That Over There? with Caine, he’ll look earnestly for whatever it was that caught her attention, then worry for the rest of the day when he can’t find it.

Jupiter feels a rush of affection for him. She gives Caine what’s probably an awfully sappy look, but he’s not paying attention; he’s pulled the silver box closer and is peering at something written inside the lid.

“ _Just try them once. You won’t regret it!_ ” Caine reads.

Jupiter sighs.

“I assume she’s talking about the handcuffs, since there was no cake.” Caine pokes around in the tissue paper, just in case there’s a baked good hiding in there somewhere.

“I told Katharine I didn’t want them — I mean, I said it more politely than that, but that was the gist — but you know how she is. When she gets an idea in her head, it’s difficult to dissuade her.”

“Your Majesty does not like handcuffs?”

“They just seem so cheesy,” Jupiter says, bringing them out from behind her back and dropping them on the table. Even in the pale morning sunlight, the fur seems bright and garish, the metal cheap. “Like they’re a joke or something. I mean, I guess they are a joke? One of Katharine’s friends gave them to her, but it’s the kind of present we’re all meant to and blush and giggle at. It’s not serious.” She rests her chin on her hand, not sure she’s making sense. “You make me feel so good when you give yourself to me, Caine. I would never want to make light of that.”

“Your Majesty,” Caine says, low and fierce. “It is my honour.”

Jupiter makes a helpless sound, leaning towards him. Caine meets her half-way, and she slides her hand into his hair and pulls their mouths together. She kisses him until his breath hitches against her tongue, just the way she likes it, then sits back down again because it’s way too early to be starting something.

Jupiter yawns.

“More coffee?” Caine says.

“Sure,” Jupiter says. “Thanks.”

Caine makes the coffee with care. He enjoys playing at domesticity because he knows how much Jupiter likes it when they act like a regular Earth couple, all home-cooked meals and farmers’ markets and their underwear co-mingling in the laundry basket. It makes a nice change from space kidnaps and rescues.

Caine brings her fresh cup over, then looks at the cuffs again. He makes a curious sound.

“Go ahead,” Jupiter says, taking a steaming hot sip of coffee. Ahh, ambrosia…

Caine picks up the cuffs, dangling them from one finger. “Why does Katharine think you should restrain me?”

“Katharine doesn’t know the kinds of things we like to do. She thinks _you_ should restrain me.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“Jupiter!” Jupiter flaps her hands in an approximation of Katharine when she’s excited. Or drunk. Or, in this case, both. “You’ve got to try these! Anton cuffed me to the bed once and went down on me for half an hour. I thought my head was going to, just—“ She gestures outwards from her temples, making tiny explosions with her fingers. “Pop!”

Jupiter’s pretty impressed with her Katharine impression, but Caine is frowning. “You assured me that was customary on Earth,” he says. “The— what did you call it?”

“Eating out?”

“Right, yes. The eating out.” He’s looking at her with a faint air of suspicion, like he thinks Jupiter has been going along with this weird space custom just to humour him.

“It is customary, I promise. Just not as thoroughly as you tend to do it. Katharine thinks a guy going down on her for half an hour one time is amazing, because Katharine isn’t lucky enough to be dating you.”

“Oh.” Caine’s ears are pinkening again, but he’s smiling to himself. He flips the cuffs between his hands, and they make a cheap metallic sound as they click together.

He looks at Jupiter.

He looks back down.

Caine snaps a cuff around one of his wrists, and then the other. He holds his hands out in front of himself consideringly. “I can see what Your Majesty means. They’re not exactly autocuffs.”

“What’re autocuffs?”

“Super-strong handcuffs they use to hold splices. They don’t have a chain; just a solid bar that locks around your wrists.” Caine shudders. “They’re the opposite of sexy.”

Jupiter eyes the fuzzy pink cuffs. “Those are also the opposite of sexy.”

Caine does a slow turn. The way his hands are pulled forward highlights the smooth roundness of his shoulders, the curves of his biceps, and, framed between his arms, abs so defined that Jupiter could scrub a shirt clean on them. Or her tongue. His back doesn’t look half-bad either, all wide and solid with his wings folded loosely against it.

Jupiter drinks some more coffee. Her throat seems a little dry suddenly.

Caine twists his wrists, and the chain rattles softly. “Is Your Majesty sure you don’t like them?”

“Yeah,” Jupiter says slowly. “Pretty sure.”

Caine stretches his hands over his head. His back arches, his wings spreading slowly, and his stomach goes concave. Jupiter wants to press her hand at the base of his ribs and slide it on downwards until she hits something worth finding.

“I mean, they’re not awful or anything,” she says on a breath.

Caine gazes at her softly, and oh, Jupiter knows that look. She beckons him over.

Caine goes to his knees in front of her, his wings splaying across the rug. He holds his bound hands out for her inspection. Jupiter runs her index finger around the inside of the cuffs, feeling the hard metal beneath the fur. She doesn’t know much about bondage, but serious cuffs would probably have some padding or something, right?

“Are they uncomfortable?” she says, and Caine shrugs. “Do you want me to take them off?”

In response, Caine lifts his hands, his wrists pressed together and his fingers curled into loose fists. He angles them so Jupiter can see the tiny key hanging from one side of the chain.

Jupiter feels something fizz inside her. “Do you want me to lock them?”

“If it would please Your Majesty.”

Jupiter spreads her fingers against the side of Caine’s neck, pressing her thumb beneath his chin until he looks up at her. “What do _you_ want?”

Caine hesitates, and then he says with endearing sincerity, “Your Majesty does realise these cannot restrain me? I could snap the chain with one good tug, and I could break the cuffs, too. But I like that you like them on me.”

“So maybe the challenge is that you don’t break them.”

“I won’t if you don’t want me to.”

“Even if I…” Jupiter reaches down between them, stroking Caine through his boxer-briefs. Caine’s body jerks, and the chain twangs as it pulls taut between his wrists. He quickly presses his palms together.

Oh, this could be fun.

“Give me your hands,” she says.

Jupiter works the key free. It’s so small and simple she’s pretty sure the cuffs could be picked with a bobby pin, but that doesn’t stop her heart beating faster as she pushes it into the lock. Something clicks as she turns it. She locks the second cuff, too, then drops the key on the table.

Caine sits back on his heels. He folds his bound hands together, resting them in his lap.

“I’m at your mercy, Your Majesty,” he says, looking up at her through his lashes. “Whatever will you do with me?”

Jupiter breathes slowly. Damn, but Caine in a playful mood makes everything inside her twist.

Caine noses the inside of her knee. “Or perhaps you would prefer me to do something for you?”

“Really?” Jupiter says, glancing at the clock on the wall. It’s barely nine am.

Caine, obviously misunderstanding, says, “Does Your Majesty think I need my hands to please her?”

“Not your hands, no.”

Caine’s tongue flashes at the corner of his mouth.

“Is that what you want?”

Caine gives an adorable little snort-laugh that does not in any way remind Jupiter of a dog. He rests his chin on her knee, looking up at her. “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Of course.”

“Every time I scent Your Majesty’s arousal, it’s all I can do not to beg for a taste.”

Jupiter swallows, feeling the heat go through her. Everywhere.

Caine whimpers. “Like that.”

It would be easy to lean back in the chair and spread her legs, but Caine is always so willing to put her pleasure before his own. He deserves everything she can give him in return and then some.

So Jupiter cups his lovely face in her hands, rubbing her thumbs over his cheekbones. She presses her lips against his forehead, and the tip of his nose, and his chin, before brushing their mouths together, and they make out for a while, slow morning kisses that taste like coffee and peanut butter and something that might just be love.

“You come first today,” she says, stroking the tender fuzz along his jawline. Caine nuzzles against her hand.

Of course, she didn’t say he was going to come _soon_.

 

 

Caine is sprawled across the living room rug. The morning sun is slanting through the windows, the soft light dappling his skin and catching in the coppery highlights of his feathers, and his bound hands are stretched above his head. The chain running between the cuffs is hooked behind the heavy wooden leg of the couch. Caine put it there himself, easily lifting the corner when she asked him to, smiling because he knows how much it pleases Jupiter when he obeys her.

He isn’t smiling now.

Jupiter is sitting on his thighs. She’s got one hand pressed against the sharp edge of his hipbone, and the other is stroking him as hard and fast as she can. She’s learnt the different ways to touch him: ways that make him curl against her, sighing sweetly into her mouth; ways that take him to the edge and keep him there as his whole body shudders; ways that work him up and get him off before he barely has time to beg for it.

“Please, Your Majesty,” Caine says, his back arching. The chain rattles against the couch leg. “Please, please.”

Jupiter squeezes him tighter, feeling the ache in her fingers. She can’t keep this up for long, but that’s okay. Caine can’t keep this up for long either. She moves her other hand between his legs, cupping him, and his whole body jolts against her.

He’s so close now, she can feel it, the little pulses along the shaft that mean he’s about to—

Jupiter takes her hands away.

“So I was thinking we could go to the market later. We’re out of chicken, right? And did you eat the last of the avocados?”

“Your Majesty?” Caine says dizzily. His hips are twitching like he just can’t keep them still. “What are you— can I— what?”

“Oh, I’m not going to get you off,” Jupiter says cheerfully. “Did I not mention that?”

“No,” Caine says, though gritted teeth. “Your Majesty did not.”

“But you can get yourself off any time you like.”

Caine tips his head back, looking at his wrists. He tugs gently on the cuffs. “I’m going to need my hand for that.”

“Yes,” Jupiter says.

“Are you going to unlock these?”

“No,” Jupiter says.

“But Your Majesty doesn’t want me breaking them.”

“That does sound like a dilemma,” Jupiter says. “What are you going to do?”

Caine exhales slowly through his nose.

Jupiter crawls up over him. She catches his chin between her thumb and forefinger, brushing their lips together. “Okay?” she whispers against his mouth.

“Is Your Majesty planning on toying with me all morning?”

“Depends how good you are for me.”

Caine moans, burying his face against her throat.

“Do you want to be a good boy for me, Caine?”

“Yes,” he breathes, the warm air washing over her skin. “Yes.”

Jupiter smiles.

 

 

After lunch, Jupiter and Caine stroll through the farmers’ market. They’re holding hands, but Caine can’t stop touching Jupiter anyway, brushing her hair over her shoulder or rubbing her arm to get her attention or nuzzling the top of her head as she’s checking the avocados for ripeness. Turns out, he did eat the last of them.

“Young love,” the stallkeeper says, smiling at his wife.

Caine puts his arm across Jupiter’s waist. A length of metal chain slides out of his jacket sleeve, followed by a hint of pink fur. The end of the chain is broken.

Jupiter quickly pushes it back in.

“Young love,” his wife says, winking.

Caine kisses Jupiter’s blushing cheek.

 

 

That evening, they crowd into the bathtub together. Caine doesn’t really like water, but he’s okay with taking bubble baths with Jupiter, especially when she’s sitting in his lap and they’re fooling around and everything’s warm and slippery.

“What do you want to do tonight?” Jupiter says, licking a drop of water from Caine’s collarbone. “Your choice.”

“Something that lets me come,” Caine says, and she laughs.

“I thought you liked this morning?”

“I loved it,” Caine says, resting his head on her shoulder. “Especially…”

“The part at the end?” Jupiter guesses.

The part where Caine growled, “Majesty, oh— fuck, fuck,” and came all over himself, shaking so hard, the chain snapped.

“Because that was just about the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Caine whimpers.

“You were beautiful,” Jupiter whispers, stroking his nape. “You were so, so good for me.”

“I shouldn’t have broken the handcuffs.”

“No big deal,” Jupiter says. “We could get some more, if you wanted?” And doesn't Caine warm her insides with his easy nod.

Jupiter runs her hands down Caine’s arms, catching his wrists and gently pushing them behind him, then leans back to study how he looks.

Yeah, that really works for her.

“Would this be uncomfortable with your wings?”

"Possibly, if I were lying down,” Caine says. ”Your Majesty might have to cuff me to a chair, instead."

Jupiter's fingers tighten on his wrists.

Caine kisses the side of her throat.

“Maybe we can find something a little harder for you to break, too," she says. "Not autocuffs, nothing scary, just stronger."

“There's some military cuffs that might be suitable, but they’ll be tough to come by on Earth, unless you want to have a particularly personal conversation with Captain Tsing.”

Jupiter considers just how that conversation would go. Tsing seems unflappable, but there's a certain point beyond which even polite fiction couldn't glide over exactly why Jupiter wanted a pair of Aegis handcuffs.

But speaking of the Aegis...

"What did Stinger do with his Marshal gear when he returned to the Skyjackers?”

“I think he left it at his house.”

“The house you have the key to?”

“That’d be the one,” Caine says.

Jupiter strokes his pulse point with her thumb, smiling slightly.

Caine grabs for the towels.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [littlerhymes](http://archiveofourown.org/users/littlerhymes/pseuds/littlerhymes) for the beta.


End file.
